‘Dreamcore’ Frustrates in Its Attempts at Riding ‘The Backrooms’ Phenomenon [Review]

Game developers often use loading screens as a handy delivery mechanism for imparting advice to the player. Whether they’re giving you a refresher on important mechanics, clueing you in on the best strategy to overcome a challenge, teasing what the next area has in store, or just fleshing out the lore with some nice worldbuilding; these hints can help minimise frustration and maximise fun.

Yet no such pearl of wisdom has ever been as upfront and revealing as the one that greets you upon booting up Dreamcore. Cautioning that “patience and observation are key” here, it’s one of the most accurate loading screen tips I’ve ever read in any game.  Because both of those qualities will indeed be sorely tested during an average playthrough of Montraluz’s new offering.

Especially your patience.

Every time I saw the undeniable, almost taunting, message appear at the bottom of my TV, I thought to myself: “truer words have surely never been spoken.” For whatever critical faculties I may possess, I’ll never be able to review this title quite so succinctly as its own creative team did with that doozy of a pull quote.

I mean, how else could you describe the maddening experience of stumbling around a Tartarean labyrinth, trying to follow the sound of some incessant, shrill beeping that — for all you know — is hidden behind an imperceptible crawlspace or some other unseen crevice that would allude even the most seasoned of escape room veterans?

I think the tedium of it all broke me on a psychological level to be honest because, halfway through one of these infernal mazes, I found myself cackling like a despondent Lovecraft protagonist. One who had resigned themselves to a grim fate, while staring into the stygian abyss and traumatically muttering the phrase “patience and observation.”

That’s how I responded to it anyway, although I imagine the developers were going more for “mysterious & atmospheric” here and less for “infuriating & downright monotonous.”

You see, Dreamcore is an attempt to ride on the coattails of The Backrooms collaborative fiction project (arguably a couple of years too late) by plunging you into a number of seemingly unpopulated liminal spaces that have no geographical logic whatsoever. There’s an endless suburbia with nary a sole in sight, an underground swimming pool complex that appears to go on forever, and tons upon tons of pitch-black corridors that you’re guaranteed to get lost in.

In each instance, all you’re charged with doing is finding the way out. But unlike in, say, one of Silent Hill‘s infamous puzzle-box environments, there’s no way to solve these mazes with either intellect or deductive reasoning. Instead, it’s an exercise in stubborn persistence as you absent-mindedly turn one corner after another, praying that the next might just yield an exit.

And that’s really all there is to it. There’s none of the intrigue, originality or simple-yet-effective creepiness that made The Backrooms such a phenomenon online. The game is billed as a psychological horror featuring puzzles (at least, those are the keywords that it flatters itself with in the marketing material) and, personally, I think those claims ought to be investigated under some kind of trade descriptions law. Because the puzzles never amount to anything more than trial-and-error wayfinding — with neither rhyme nor reason governing how you should proceed — and the horror — psychological or otherwise — is flat-out non-existent.

Some may feel compelled to come rushing to Montraluz’s defence on the latter point, arguing that the scares are not meant to be in-your-face or obvious here, but rather that it’s more about atmosphere. The problem is, I don’t think there is much of that either!

Dreamcore is all about the so-called “liminal” (a word that is increasingly being divested of meaning, now apparently signifying somewhere that is just a bit yellow and empty), yet it doesn’t understand what makes things like The Backrooms so compelling. It’s not enough to merely drop you in a fluorescent-lit corridor and call it a day. There has to be more going on under the hood.

Credit where it’s due, the subterranean swimming baths do at least have a couple of uncanny visuals that stuck with me; like a water slide in the dead centre of an eerily-still pool and a cavernous, water-logged hallway that branches off into a dozen other lagoons. However, even that starts to get repetitive after a while and any sense of unease is quickly replaced with mind-numbing boredom. These images might work as spooky pictures that you momentarily glance at on Reddit, but they’re not enough to sustain a video game.

As for what you’ll find in these non-linear worlds, there’s vanishingly little to discover. Depending on the route you take, you might find some beach balls with vaguely off-putting faces drawn on them, a recurring eye motif that’s plastered on the odd wall here and there, or observation stations that imply you’re being watched by some shadowy organisation. None of it ever pays off or results in anything close to an incident, however.

Again, defenders will probably argue that’s the point and that you’re meant to just get immersed in all of the abstract vibes Dreamcore is giving off. Maybe I’m just a philistine though, because I derive absolutely nothing from wandering silent hallways for hours on end. Other than getting really fucking annoyed by it!

The Steam page proudly boasts that Montraluz’s game has no jump scares or monster encounters to speak of. That’s all well and good (those aren’t prerequisites for horror after all) but there has to be something in their place. A disturbing idea. An unsettling mood. A sense of dread. A fun puzzle that doesn’t boil down to “Guess which door leads to the incessantly beeping elevator”. Literally anything!

Instead, all this one gives you —   besides some admittedly authentic looking, VHS style graphics, courtesy of Unreal Engine 5 —   is a whole lot of nothing!

Review code provided by publisher. Dreamcore will be released on the January 23rd on PC via Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox platforms.

The post ‘Dreamcore’ Frustrates in Its Attempts at Riding ‘The Backrooms’ Phenomenon [Review] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.